Rating of
3/4
One of the most popular franchises comes to an end
The M.O.W. - wrote on 09/07/08
A movie legend is dying. "Gojira", which is known to American audiences as "Godzilla", is slowly dying due to a nuclear overdose in a previous film. But that's not Japan's only problem. Creatures created by a weapon designed to kill "The King of Monsters" has begun terrorizing Japan.
At first, these creatures are small enough to deoxygenize the water at the local aquarium, but they rapidly grow to enormous size. These creatures look like a mix between crustaceans and praying mantis.
And to complicate things further, "Godzilla, Jr." has mutated into an adult thanks to the same explosion which is killing the elder one. The only way to tell the two apart is that "Godzilla, Jr." has smaller spines on its back.
Now, "G-Force", the military group whose purpose is to protect Japan from the threat of "Godzilla", has multiple monsters to deal with, in addition to the possible atomic fallout caused by "Godzilla's" body, which is rapidly rising in temperature.
The first thing you will notice is the monster costumes, which have changed in "Godzilla's" case over the decades. These actually work better than CGI creatures we've seen in the States. The only problem Toho, the studio which produces the franchise, still has is that it is still painfully obvious that the buildings and vehicles the monsters destroy during their battles are models. The battles themselves are nicely shot, and have lots of action.
One small weakness in this movie is that there are numerous references to the first film in the series. Most notably, one of the human characters is the son of the character who created the weapon which inadvertently creates "Destroyah". However, this one glitch can be remedied, since the first movie is out on VHS (I haven't looked for it on DVD).
When it comes to the acting, I would have to applaud the voice-over actors who did a good job with matching the scenes on the screen. Surprisingly, there isn't a comic relief character in this film like some of the earliest films in the series. I'm personally pleased that there wasn't one since this was a more serious storyline. In my opinion, a comic relief character would have lightened the mood a little too much. It also appears that the English voice-overs are edited very well in the scenes.
Most of the film features the monsters. In my opinion, there was enough screen time for the human cast. Some people may disagree with me, but I thought the human moments advanced the storyline well when needed.
The special effects, except for the obvious models during the monster battles, are real good. I personally thought the "hot spots" on "Godzilla's" body were pretty wild visually. Whatever was used to light them up made them look like molten rock. "Destroyah" looked simply evil, thanks to the dark coloring of the "skin" of the costume, and the shadowing used to highlight the head of the creature, which has eyes that light up.
There is one surprising death in the movie that you won't expect. There is one obvious death, "Godzilla's", which is quite unique visually. I will not mention any more than that about these deaths.
This is THE must-see movie for "Godzilla"/"Gojira" fans. I also recommend it for anybody who watched those "Creature Feature" TV shows on local TV hosted by a campy looking zombie, vampire/vampiress or other campy monster.
